


The Borderlands of Sleep

by captainkaltar



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Universe, Dreaming, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Jean is Sad, M/M, Marco is caring and adorable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 15:15:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4881655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainkaltar/pseuds/captainkaltar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean has a dream about Marco that he never wants to wake up from.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Borderlands of Sleep

He’s lying on a dishevelled bed in a dishevelled room, staring at the wood knots in the ceiling and waiting for sleep to take over his mind. He’s got almost nothing to live for: he’s only here to work his way out of his terrible life in his terrible world. Most of his body is raging, either in pain or in sadness. 

His bunkmates are all asleep, passed out after yet another day of hell. He can hear them in the dark, two sets of calm little sleep-noises where there used to be four. Five beds in the room, two of them lying empty. 

Sighing, he sinks into his thin mattress, not bothering to pull up the covers. He’s still wearing his torn, unwashed Trainee Corps uniform, jacket, harness and all, but he’s too apathetic and too tired to change out of it. His muscles burn so hard from another day strapped into maneuver gear that sleep ought to take him soon enough. He closes his eyes, trying not to hear that voice in his head, the voice that makes him cry. 

Somehow he forces himself to sleep, only to wake up all over again. It’s gotten colder as the night’s worn on: he realizes that he does need his covers after all. He sits up to reach for them when a soft voice whispers in his ear, a voice that used to belong to someone he loved. The voice that makes him cry. 

“Shh, lie down Jean. Let me do that for you.” The voice’s tone is kind and loving, but he can’t deal with its presence. It leaves too much loneliness in its wake. Please, not again, no. He’s crying already, and the voice has only just arrived. Usually he can hold out a little longer than this before his tears flow. 

But now a warm, gentle hand alights on his shoulder, and there’s another stroking his cheek, wiping it dry. He’s taken by the upper arms and gently pressed back down into the bed. The covers are pulled over his aching body and tucked around him, like he’s a small child in need of protection.

This is a surprise. The voice hasn’t had a body attached to it since… Since before… Don’t go there, just don’t go there. No, it’s too hard. No! But flashbacks flood his mind nonetheless, causing him to practically wail with anguish. 

“Oh, Jean! Don’t cry that hard, darling! There’s no reason to be so sad!” He’s lifted out of bed, covers and all, swept into arms that have held him like this many times before. “I’m right here. You’re safe in my arms. Did you think that something happened to me?”

“You’re really h-here?” he moans “Marco, you’re really alive?” 

“You just lie down and sleep, there, that’s it, everything’s all right, sweetheart.” Long fingers stroke his already tousled hair. Despite the calming words whispered in his ear, he can’t stop crying. Sobs rack his entire body, shaking him right to the bone. 

“Marco…” he chokes in between bursts of crying. “Marco, please, don’t remind me of what happened to you, don’t make me live through it again.” God, he would never let himself sound so pathetic in front of anyone else. 

“Nothing happened to me Jean: you just had a nightmare. I’m here, there’s nothing bad to live through again, I’m here, it wasn’t real, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.” He’s lifted higher in the other young man’s arms and his entire face is peppered with kisses. It’s meant as a comforting gesture, but it makes him cry even harder. A particularly large sob sends a shiver through his chest and Marco pulls away, setting him back down on the bed. 

“It must have been a very bad dream. Anything else I can do to make it feel better?” Even in the darkness, he can make out his friend’s face, and recognizes the concern in those deep brown eyes that he knows so well. 

“J-just h-h-hold me, Marco. I thought I-I…” He can’t bring himself to say it. Even thinking about it brings a fresh wave of tears. 

“You don’t have to talk about it right now.” Marco lies down next to him, covering them both with the blankets. “How about I hold you until you fall asleep?” Jean doesn’t bother to answer orally; he just leans in and Marco sweeps him into his arms, kissing the top of his head. Jean curls up as close as he can to his friend, burying his face in Marco’s shirt and breathing in his familiar scent. 

“I missed you,” he whispers in between sobs “I missed you so much. Never do that to me again Marco, I can’t live like that again, life isn’t worth it without you.” 

“Listen to me” Marco pulls him up so that they can see eye to eye. “I love you, Jean Kirstein. I love you more than anything. Ever since we first met, I knew there was something very special about you, and that you can do great things. But right now, you’re practically in shock. I don’t know what you dreamt, and I can tell that is was horrible, but you need to put it behind you and get some sleep. I’ll be with you all night. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir” he replies, his voice fuzzy from sleep and crying. He gazes at his friend’s face, taking in every contour, every freckle of that beautiful, beautiful young man. Marco watches him for a while, with obvious love in his eyes. Then his hand reaches up and playfully shuts Jean’s eyelids, holding them down in case of protest. 

“You never were all that good at following orders, sweetheart. I told you to go to sleep!” 

“Okay, okay, if you insist, I’ll sleep if it makes you happy.”

“Oh, you, always so stubborn.” Marco kisses his forehead. 

“But can I do one thing before I go to sleep?” 

“It depends.”

“Let me open my eyes, I want to see you if I’m going to ask you this.” 

“Fine, if you must.” Marco’s fingers slip away and Jean takes in a perfect view of his face again. 

“Before I go to sleep, can I kiss you?” 

Marco says nothing, he only rolls onto his back and guides Jean’s body so that he’s lying on top of him. One boy’s head moves up, the other’s moves down, and their lips meet somewhere in the middle. It’s a slow, tender kiss, until Marco lets out an inadvertent little moan of happiness, causing Jean to open his mouth and positively devour him. It feels like hours before Marco finally breaks away, but Jean barely gives him enough time to catch his breath before cupping his freckled face with both hands and pressing him into another passionate kiss. 

Afterwards, they roll over and lie side by side, gasping for air, tangled in each other’s arms. Jean brushes the gentlest of kisses across his lover’s face, relishing the feeling of warmth and safety radiating from Marco. He runs his fingers through dark hair and over freckled skin, part of him still struggling to believe that Marco, his Marco, is really with him, here in the same small space. 

They hold each other a little closer, torsos touching, breathing in sync. Lulled by the rise and fall of Marco’s chest, Jean finds himself slowly drifting back to sleep. Everything is calm and warm and completely all right, so long as they’re together like this. The last thing he notices before passing out is Marco softly kissing his eyelids and whispering a few final endearments in his ear. 

“I love you Jean, my darling, my one and only, I love you so much, Jean, Jean, Jean…”

 

 

He wakes up in a cold bed in a cold room, staring at the wood knots in the ceiling and completely alone. His first waking instinct is to look for his lover, but there’s no sign of Marco, not even a lingering scent or an indent in the mattress. He feels around the bed, desperately looking for even the smallest sign that he didn’t dream the whole encounter, but he finds nothing. He sits up and looks around, but sees no one except for his two bunkmates, getting dressed with their backs turned to him. They’re laughing at some private joke, and haven’t even noticed that he’s awake. Good. With Marco suddenly gone, he’s not sure if he can face anyone anymore. A surge of panic rises from his core, and he clutches himself in a ball, trying and failing to replicate the sensation of being wrapped in Marco’s arms.

He’s overcome with anger towards the other boys. Neither of them are Marco. Neither of them will understand. They’ve both lost people close to them before, but not like this. Neither of them have slowly grown to love someone new, only to have them torn away as quickly as an aberrant Titan running at full speed. Neither of them have vividly dreamed about their love returning safe and alive, only to wake up back in this grimmest of realities. 

His breathing comes in ragged gulps as his tears begin to flow once again. He shuts his eyes, trying to retain all his memories of the night, rocking back and forth slightly and sobbing like little lost child. He’s never felt more alone in his life, a life that isn’t worth it without Marco. Overcome with grief and longing, he lets himself go and cries out as loud as he can, cries out his agony, his pain, his desolation, everything he’s felt since that one terrible day. The day that keeps resurfacing in his mind, no matter how hard he tries to cling to better memories, memories of his friend and his lover. He tries to picture Marco, but all he sees is nothingness. 

But then, out of his darkness, he hears voices. Voices looming over him. 

“Jean, is there something wrong?”

“Of course there’s something wrong with him, Eren! He wouldn’t be crying that hard if there wasn’t.”

“What should we do? Go get someone else to help him? We’re supposed to regroup in less than ten minutes!” 

“Jean?” Armin cautiously places a hand on his shoulder “What can we do for you? What happened?”

“He probably just had a really bad dream. Hey Jean! Get up! We’ve got Titans to kill!” Eren roughly pulls off Jean’s covers, despite protests from his friend. 

“Get away from me, Jaeger” he snaps, physically lashing out at the agressive, green-eyed boy “Just go away. Both of you, leave me alone!” Eren looks insulted at first, then his expression changes as he notices Jean’s red-rimmed eyes and tear-soaked shirt collar. 

“Had a rough night?” asks Armin, with obvious concern “I heard you crying a few times, and you were talking in your sleep.” 

“Dammit. You didn’t make out anything I said in my sleep, did you?” 

“You were mostly crying, but you kept saying things and then pausing. Almost as if you were having a conversation with an imaginary person.” 

“An imaginary person?” 

“It does happen. Sometimes people dream so vividly that they think their dream is real life and real life is a dream: I read about it once. That could have happened to you.”

“Hope whatever you dreamt about was nice,” interjects Eren, strapping on his maneuver gear “But we’ve got to get back to the real world. Come on Armin, come on Horse-boy, let’s go try and save humanity!” 

They dash out the door, chattering eagerly about… well, he honestly doesn’t care. They could be discussing almost anything and he wouldn’t care. He hardly cares about anything anymore. He follows them at a distance, mentally preparing himself for another day of hell. Another day of death and shouting and terror and futility. Another day in a world where Marco is dead.

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place during the clean-up operation after the battle of Trost, while most of the main characters are still part of the Trainee Corps. 
> 
> I honestly felt sorry for Jean while I was writing this. Poor guy's mind keeps messing with him. 
> 
> This is my first attempt at fanfic that I'm actually happy with: more fics (Jeanmarco or otherwise) to follow soon!


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